NSADIRECTORODOMDISSECTSIRAQ BLUNDERS

Former National Security Agency Director Lt. General William Odom dissected the strategic folly of the Iraq
invasion and Bush Administration policies
in a major policy speech- America’s Strategic Paralysis, at Brown University for the Watson Institute for International Studies. "The Iraq War may turn out to be the
greatest strategic disaster in American history.
In a mere 18 months we went from unprecedented
levels of support after 9-11..to being one
of the most hated countries…Turkey used to
beone of strongest pro-US regimes, now we’re
so unpopular, there’s a movie playing there-
Metal Storm, about a war between US and Turkey. In addition
to producing faulty intel and ties to Al
Qaida, Bush made preposterous claim that
toppling Saddam would open the way for liberal
democracy in a very short time... Misunderstanding
the character of American power, he dismissed
the allies as a nuisance and failed to get
the UN Security Council’s sanction…We must reinforce international law, not
reject and ridicule it.”

Odom, now a Yale professor and Hudson Institute
senior fellow, was director of the sprawling
NSA (which monitors all communications) from
1985-88 under Reagan, and previously was
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s assistant under Carter.
His latest 2004 book isAmerica’s Inadvertent Empire.

Even if the invasion had gone well, Odom
says it wouldn’t have mattered: “The invasion
wasn’t in our interests, it was in Iran’s interest, Al Qaida’s interest. Seeing America invade must have made Iranian
leaders ecstatic. Iran’s hostility to Saddam was hard to exaggerate..
Iraq is now open to Al Qaida, which it never
was before- it’s easier for terrorists to
kill Americans there than in the US..Neither our leaders or the mainstream media
recognize the perversity of key US policies
now begetting outcomes they were designed
to prevent… 3 years later the US is bogged
down in Iraq, pretending a Constitution has
been put in place, while the civil war rages,
Iran meddles, and Al Qaida swells its ranks
with new recruits. The US Army is stretched to the breaking point
and the majority of Americans have deep doubts.
We have lost our capacity to lead and are
in a state of crisis- diplomatic and military.”

Odom believes in an immediate phased withdrawal.
“There isn’t anything we can do by staying
there longer that will make this come out
better. Every day we stay in, it gets worse
and the price gets higher.”

He decried the “sophomoric and silly” titled
war on terrorism. “Terrorism cannot be defeated
because it’s not an enemy, it’s a tactic.
A war against Al Qaida is sensible and supportable,
but a war against a tactic is ludicrous and
hurtful… a propaganda ploy to swindle others
into supporting one’s own terrorism ... and
encourages prejudices against Muslims everywhere.
What if we said, ‘Catholic Christian IRA
hitmen’? ”

“The hypocrisy is deeper than this. By any
measure the US has long used terrorism. In
‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law
against international terrorism- in every
version they produced, the lawyers said the
US would be in violation.”

He said the fixation on spreading democracy
was wrongheaded. “Holding elections is easy,
creating stable constitutional orders is
difficult. Only 8-9 of 50 new democracies
created since the 40’s have a constitutional
system. Voting only ratifies the constitutional
deal that has been agreed to by elites- people
or groups with enough power- that is guns
and money, to violate the rules with impunity…
Voting does not cause a breakthrough… One
group will win out and take them off the
path to a liberal breakthrough .. Spreading
illiberal democracy without Constitutionalism
is a very bad idea, if we care about civil
liberties. We are getting that lesson again
in Hamas.”

Odom called for a “great reduction in US
oil consumption” and pilloried our “energy
policy of no energy policy. As long as large
sums of money roll into the coffers of a
few Middle East states, a lot of it will
leak into the hands of radical political
activists. A “$2-3 a gallon tax could fund
massive R+D programs for alternative fuels
and generate a strong demand for greater
fuel efficiency … Getting serious about nuclear
power could also lessen our oil dependency.”

“No government that believes radical terrorist
groups in Middle East are serious threat
to us would do any less on energy policy.”

Withdrawing our troops from Europe and NE
Asia was also dangerous, he said. “Large
US land forces in Europe and East Asia have
been important in keeping the peace among
our allies… allowing businessmen to lower
transaction costs… and account for unparalleled
economic growth.”President Clinton reduced the Army by about
half, but Bush’s deployments in Iraq and
Afghanistan “will leave the US unprepared
to meet any other significant military contingency… leaving only one brigade in Germany and
one in Italy, and eroding troop levels in
Korea and Japan. Army units and NATO were
cut at such a high level, that most NCO's
and officers were away 2 or 3 quarters of
the year.”Rumsfeld’s plans threaten to “hollow out
NATO, ensuring the failure of military transformations
of its new members.” (10 states in Eastern
Europe and the Baltic)

NATO Members

The adult crowd was wowed by the extraordinary
density of strategic wisdom and expertise
in the hour lecture and Q+A. Asked about
the current NSA spying controversy, Odom
said, “Well he just invited you to invite
me to commit a felony. 18 US Code798 says
‘to disclose anything about how signal intelligence
is done is a felony.’ ”“Oh come on, Bill,” joshed a professor to
a round of laughter. “After 9-11 Congress
was willing to do anything. It’s inconceivable
to me that they would not have cooperated
to find a legal way to do this (warrantless
spying).”

Most radically, Odom sees the hallowed US
concern over non-proliferation of nukes as
damaging. "Over the past decade the
pursuit of non-proliferation has contributed
to instability and the loss of American influence.
It dictated the invasion of Iraq, and now
inspires calls for invading Iran. At the
same time we ignore Israeli nukes, we embrace
Pakistan and India, in spite of their nukes.
This policy is not only perverse, but downright
absurd. We will have more proliferation and we better
get used to it.

A reporter’s question about the benefits of an attack on Iranian
nuclear facilities provoked a fervent response.
“I think we could have a rapprochement with
Iran. You do that and you put it off for
another 20 years. You want to be at war with
all the Muslims forever?” Regarding a nuclear
terrorist attack on a US city, “It’s gonna
be bad. But they won’t kill us with one nuke.
We can track a nuke back to the country where
it came from (at least the fissile material,
if there is a recorded elemental signature).
These people know that! If we deterred the
Soviet Union, think we can’t deter these
pipsqueaks? We’re talking ourselves into
hysteria. Now we have the incentives so structured
that we cause proliferation.. If we bomb,
good God man, that tells everyone in the
world, get a nuke. We won’t bomb you if you have a nuke.”

He agreed that a catastrophic 10 year Iraq
civil war like Lebanon was “a pretty realistic
view”.“Iran has told the Shiites, ‘don’t fight,
do what the Americans tell you- the electoral
process will put you in power, meanwhile
we’re arming you and building up your militias.
The Sunni insurgency is trying to provoke
the civil war while we’re still there so
they’re not left to face these militias after
we’ve leave.” The Kurds “will get as much
autonomy as they can and back out of the
system. An independent Kurdistan is likely,
but the two factions of Kurdish Peshmerga
militias might fight. Al Qaida can’t operate
up there, so that will be a stable little
island.” But Kurdish independence “won’t
please Iran, Syria, or Turkey- a NATO ally.”

The victory of the numerically dominant Shiites
(4 to 1) isn’t assured. “Odds look better
for the Shiites right now. But the organizational
capacity of the Baathists remain sufficient
to be a serious contender. How much confidence
and capability are these Iranian trained
Shiite militias developing? They could fragment
among themselves. The clerics may or may
not be good organizers of the troops and
police. The Baathist Party was modeled after
the Soviet system- their ability to implement
and impose and compel is pretty impressive.
Syria is a pretty stable regime; Iraq was
a stable regime.” The civil war could spread
the Shiite-Sunni conflict among Arabs in
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, maybe Bahrain.

Iraq “will have some sort of dictatorship- either a highly disciplined party or military
organization. We just don’t have fragmented
societies with such deep sectarian and ethnic
divisions that are also nice stable liberal
systems. Look at Canada with just two ethnic
groups, that teeters occasionally. Where
is Saddam when you need him?”

On escaping Iraq: “Once it became obvious
I was getting out, I would go to Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Syria, Turkey, and Iran and say,
‘I invite you to this meeting to handle stabilization
issues as I get out.’ I would have a secret
chamber with Iran and say, ‘You hate the
Taliban, we hate the Taliban; you want to
sell oil, we need to buy oil; your alliance
with Russia is very unnatural; if you want
to discuss the West Bank- I’ll talk about
it but won’t give anything away.’

‘Oh, and by the way, I’m taking the nuclear
issue off the table. You want nukes, have them. You live in a bad neighborhood.’ There’s
no single diplomatic move that would so revolutionize
our position up there.”

In North Korea Odom “anticipates a collapse.
That regime is very much like the Soviet
regime, they do not transform, they degenerate.
When the leadership loses capacity or will
to blood or terrorize the population, it
collapses.” He sees a sudden reunification
of the now nuclear Koreas, followed by tensions
with ancient overseer Japan. “Those 2 countries
don’t like each other.”

The Koreans say, ‘The Americans are crazy.’-
just look at the public opinion polls and
attitude of the South Korean government.
Kim Jong Il knows just what to do to get
the US to spin up in the air 3 times and
bribe him on the way down. I see us on autopilot
on a self-destructive path. China’s slowly
replacing us. They’re becoming the peacemaker- they’re the ones
who use their hegemony to settle things constructively.”

The American Empire was different from others
in that, "It is ideological, not territorial; it's a money-making empire, not money losing;
countries fight to get into this empire,
not out; and it provides economic, legal and miltary
guidance through supranational organizations."

Odom sees in Iraq ominous parallels with
Vietnam. “How did we get in the (Vietnam)
war? Phony intelligence over the Tonkin Gulf
affair. Once we got in, it was not legitimate
to go back and talk about strategic purpose,
we were only allowed to talk about how we
were doing- the tactics. We would not go
back and ask whether this was in our interests. I see the pattern so clearly here.We have Iraqization- if they stand up, we’ll
stand down. Training troops is not the problem.
Political consolidation, not military consolidation,
is the issue. Unless troops know to whom
they should be loyal, they’ll fight some
days, not others (and maybe against the wrong
side).”

“If they (military power) get ahead of political
consolidation, we know what happens then-
a military coup.”

“This was imminently foreseeable by my poly
sci colleagues who did not stand up and speak
out loudly enough at the absurdity of spreading
democracy when we’re really talking about
Constitutionalism. Creating Constitutions-
we don’t know how to do that! (at least not
for 220 years) We are essentially paralyzed
and can’t do much in the world cause we are
bogged down in Iraq.”

“My message of decline is grim, but let us
not despair. The declinists wake us up, so that we avoid decline; but
the endists urge us to celebrate as we drift towards
disaster. Those who urged us to invade Iraq
are endists; I’m a declinist…. but only to
revive my strategic optimism.”

Michael Hammerschlag's commentary and articles
(HAMMERNEWS.com) have appeared in Seattle Times, Providence. Journal, Columbia
Journalism Review, Honolulu Advertiser, Capital
Times, MediaChannel; and Moscow News, Tribune, Times, and
Guardian. He spent 2 years in Russia from 1991-94,
while the Empire collapsed and multiple wars
raged in the Islamic southern republics.
hammerschlag@bigfoot.com

MY IRAQ ARTICLESFIRM of MIND, SOFT on FACTSeve of war- Bush has, with a steady stream of lies,
deceptions, and propaganda, has managed to
convince half the country that Saddam supports
Al Qaida or even was behind 9-11. Iraq invasion historic blunder that may
echo through the decades- 3-17-03 Liberal Slant, BartcopALTWARBLOG3/19-5/19/03

STOPPING the NEXT BOSNIA- ARCHIVE com. scoopCapital Times -Dec 13, 2003 FULL version. - It seems obvious we will be forced out of
Iraq, which will explode into Civil War between the 63% Shiites and 17% Sunni former
rulers (and the 19% Kurds?); Bosnia across
California; Beirut in the third biggest oil
country- Maybe partitioning Iraq could mitigate or prevent the coming bloodbath
- Nov 4;TALK SHOW (audio) on subj.- 40min w Barry Farber-
Dec 4, 03 Brown U. Conf. on Kurds (audio) 4:03 min- Oct 1

AN OUNCE OF PREVENTIONAlterNetScoopOpEd NewsALTALT2 Against every rule of
occupation, almost no effort was made to
secure the vast munitions stores of Iraq
after the invasion; 250,000 tons, 39% of the ordinance was looted by insurgents and is killing our soldiers
every day. IED deaths have more than doubled in the
last year- now 59% of US fatalities, and
there's enough looted armaments to make ten 500 lb IED's a day for the next 274 years.Interview of Military Intelligence agent
who reveals how even an ammo dump next to
huge US base was negligently allowed to be
looted.- Oct 28, '05

OVER THERE(gif)- Capital TimesFeb 26, 2005HTML Bush claims we are fighting them there so they won't
come here, and that seems logical, even to some liberals;
After all, there haven't been more attacks
in America- Feb 15 Washington Dispatch

BUSH's WANTON WAR- Liberal Slant Saddam is a monster, but Bush's militancy
is due to the '93 plot to kill his father
and upcoming elections, not any imminent
danger or 9-11 guilt. Punishing enemies is
a family tradition, where he started his
career- Bartcop10/12/02LOCALSmk Chp vers.